Your videos are a great help to me. I am a lifetime pianist that has just purchased my first harpsichord, tuning became an issue almost immediately. Your advice for 3rds, 4ths and 5ths are of much help, but I couldn’t help but notice that when you play your C note on the instrument here in this video, it’s actually playing a concert Bb, just wanted to understand your reasoning, and if I should consider the same at home. I’m playing on a small scale 70’s era 54-key Neupert Tellemman.
Hi there, I'm glad to hear the videos are proving helpful! Well spotted: this harpsichord is not tuned to a=440, but a=400. It's a pitch that was used in France in the late 17th and throughout much of the 18th century (with some exceptions, like e.g. the opera). So, it's still very much a C, albeit on a different pitch :-) Your 1970's Neupert is likely to be tuned at 440 Hz or thereabouts, so you tune to that pitch, of course. EarlyMusicSources.com have a great video on the subject, if you want to learn more!
Vielen Dank :) für die französische Literatur nehme ich Mitteltönig, wenn's früheres Repertoire ist, und für das spätere stimme ich Tempérament Ordinaire. Händel ist etwas schwieriger, oft Werckmeister 3, Kirnberger 3 oder, je nach Programm, ein modifiziertes Tempérament Ordinaire, eine Hausmischung, sozusagen ;-)
Thank you for your videos! I enjoy watching them and learn a lot. I’m new to this, and I’ve been using equal temperament to tune my harpsichord, and I want to experiment with one of the temperaments you suggested. Once you set the temperament, all the octaves will be pure, correct? Regardless of the temperament? Also, can you suggest the best and most usable tuning if you play with other musicians? They tend to like equal temperament, but is there a historical temperament that is usable and reasonably easy to tune for someone who’s still learning all this? I’m not great Tuning by ear yet. What’s a good temperament after equal temperament that works well with chamber music, continuo playing? I’ve gotten so many different answers!
Hi there, thanks for the comment! I'm happy to hear you like my videos :) Oof, those are a some very good questions, sorry in advance that the replies end up being so long! - Exactly, the octaves and unisons are perfectly pure. Some people like deliberately setting them out of tune, ever so slightly, as they feel this gives the tuning a certain body. Personally, I don't agree, and I prefer my unisons and octaves to be perfectly pure. I have also not come across anything similar in historic sources. Finally, it should be added that in a concert the harpsichord will go out tune by itself, so this seems like wasted effort to me ;-) - Many people will tell you to tune Vallotti. I strongly recommend against that! Not only is Vallotti very anachronistic (very late 18th century, and except for Tartini - who seems to have been a personal friend of Vallotti's - nobody ever mentions him or his temperaments), it also sounds atrocious. Equal temperament at least had its proponents throughout the centuries, so it is somehwat historically appropriate. When it comes to temperaments, I always try to tune what's appropriate to the music, historically speaking. As "all-purpose-tools" I usually go for Kirnberger III, Werckmeister III, or Temperament Ordinaire. They are really easy to tune by ear (four 1/4-comma meantone fifths which make up a pure third, and the rest of the fifths are either pure or quasi pure), and sound really great. Things like Vallotti or Equal temperament or Neidhardt have lots of slightly out-of-tune fifths, sometimes in odd places, making them difficult to impossible to accurately tune by ear. Finally, it has to be added that, excepting fretted instruments like lutes and gambas, as well as wind instruments to a certain degree, there's not really any temperament that's "more" or "less" comfortable to play with. There are temperaments your colleagues will be used to, and thus they feel more comfortable to them. But many of colleagues have confirmed that, once you get used to them, meantone or Werckmeister or Kirnberger etc. are just as comfortable - or uncomfortable - to tune to as any others. It's just a matter of practise, of course. Hope this helps! Feel free to keep the questions coming :)
@@AndreasGilger Thank you for the great, detailed information! I am using a T-tuner because of you! I will continue to work on my tuning--seems like it's not 'setting' well . . . upper range just goes sharp, lower range falls a bit almost immediately. I don't think it's the harpsichord; more my tuning skills, or lack thereof. Thanks again! You are very kind!
@@michaelmastronicola3158 Sometimes it can be the instrument's fault, or the climate's fault. A harpsichord that's tuned rarely will go out of tune quickly, and a tuning will move with both temperature and humidity. The extreme ranges of your instrument will reflect those changes most noticeably. So: don't fret - and keep turning those pins :-)
Hello, I just bought a used harpsichord and this is the first time I am tuning a harpsichord, unfortunately I was given a L shaped tuning hammer so I was wondering if there is any way I can use the L shaped tuning hammer without dameging the harpsichord? Thank you.
Hi, you'll need to be super careful not to apply any downward pressure with the L-shaped hammer. I recommend investing in a T-shaped one, that way you'll be a lot more relaxed when tuning :-)
Johann Georg Neidhardt was a musician and theoretician of the 18th century who developed a number of temperaments. In order to accurately set the temperaments he made use of a monochord, not unlike how we would use a tuning device nowadays
@@AndreasGilger Thank you so much for the quick reply. I actually thought there was a temperament called "night art"-I was picturing some darkly tuned piano. Now it makes much more sense!
At those times, there were the organist to develop new tunings. Usually they were not tuned on the organs. The organists knew that. They developed just to show that they are interested end engaged to make the organ sound better. It was a matter of renommé. The church liked to see such engaged folks. Vallotti belongs to them. He describes, how about a harpsichord was tuned 100 years before and was therefore out of any public interest in 1776. Here is the point of his anachronism. Same goes for Werckmeister, Neidhardt, Kirnberger. No source for having been tuned. The harpsichordists had one good sounding tuning and another for all keys and this was all they needed. They were responsible for their tuning to work fine in the next concerto. So they selected the one or the other. We should not expect sources here. The lutenists prefered tempered placement of the frets. This was done by sight, not by ear because it is easy to make. And that was it. So did the bass Gambists. For the reference tone they could have used a tongue whistle, which gives a stabile tone. If you blow stronger, it gets louder, not higher. But they did not. Tempered seems to be the same word for two different tunings. They said, tempered tuned by monochord sounds not fine, but tempered by ear sounds better. So, what do we really know about baroque tuning?
It is true: compared to the massively varied practice of tuning the amount of information available today is very slim. The temperaments on organs were usually changed to adapt to modern demands, harpsichords go out of tune, and few people bothered to write down their methods of tuning. But that should not be an argument for dismissing what information we have. Often, historical authors would not write prescriptively, but descriptively. Take for example the "tempérament ordinaire" in France: authors writing about it would describe current practice of tuning, and one author (Sauveur) even calculated the pitch of his harpsichord - twice, and accurately! We have pitch pipes, tuning forks, wind instruments which allow insight into pitch of certain times and places, and we have descriptions of how people tuned their instruments as well as surviving instruments with their original temperament intact. We have people complaining about how some instruments were difficult to play at the same time because of their different temperaments (for example: fretted instruments like lutes on one hand, and keyboard instruments on the other hand). What's more: there actually is evidence of the organ builder Kunze (or Contius) having tuned his organs in accordance with Werckmeister. So, even though massive amounts of information are lost, even though all the "in house temperaments" of individual harpsichordists and organ builders are lost, what does survive should absolutely be taken seriously. How else are we to ever approach the sounds of centuries past? It's all we have!
@@AndreasGilger And we have Zang, 1800. Let us tune the organ tempered and take, what comes. It will be not the best, but the last 150 years of looking for a better organ tuning were wasted.
Zang is by no means the first author to advocate equal temperament. At any rate, I vehemently disagree with the claim that equal temperament is "the best" temperament. There's nothing quite like a pure major third ;-) And even if equal temperament were "the best", experimenting with and learning about other temperaments is hardly "time wasted"!
@@AndreasGilger You make a common mistake. You do not see the difference between me and you. Zang was the first to advocate equal temperament. Many years before and before Werckmeister a French organ was tunes tempered. It sounded uggly. They changed it after a short time and never turned back. Zang knew about this. It should alarm you, that Zang advocated the tempered tuning 150 jears later, knowing, it was no good tuning. He was frustrated. Best organ tuning is Klaiss. This firm earns a lot of money with making their organs sound better than the rest. But ist is not perfect. The problem is unsolved. his is nowadays, not baroque. You mentioned Vallotti. You can not even say, was it meant as organ tuning or harpsichord tuning. Surely, it is of none importance, Vallotti was not tuned.There were two reasons. 1.: They knew, it was a new organ tuning. Therefore they did not tune organs with it. 2.: They saw it as a harpsichord tuning. They could already tune their harpsichords for all keys. They did not need that. Now lets us have a look to England. There is the Fitzwilliam book. They had a tuning for all keys. But this tuning was not written in a book. There is no English tuning book. Every student learned it from his master, also tuning, so every harpsichordist knew, what to do. The logic is the same in France and Germany. They all knew what to do for playing in many keys and needed no book for it. So, here an explanation is necessary for the books with the tuning tables. Same thing with the feathers, same thing with the only sufficient cheese on Italian noodles. Amsterdam was very Protestant. Amsterdam was at the coast. They had many feathers of seagull. So they wrote, seagull sound best. France was Catholic and France was Paris. In France they wrote, Raven makes the only good sound. Which means, the protestant sound is not so fine. They invented more and more well tempered tunings to show their intellectual abillity and to be prout of themselves. They did not need them. They did not use them. If you think, Buxtehudes organ was tuned in Werckmeister III, read the souces carefully. Buxtehude met Weckmeister and they decided to tune the organ in Werckmeister III. The organ was tuned then by a local organ builder, who tuned the organ as the parish wanted to pay for. Now to the most important thing, the style of interpretation. The Germans were trained organists with the ability to play the harpsichord. The French had trained harpsichord players. The Germans first had to take care of the pedal. It is like walking, one step after the other step. There above is the melody. So they played the harpsichord. The French harpsichordists wanted a melody, that speaks. Really, this is better for the audience. And the audience pays the chose. Besides, this is your personal position and I think, you do it fine and I enjoy it very much. But this is me and you and not Baroque. Now German organists came to Paris and wanted to make a carreer as harpsichordist to make good money. They played their compositions in their style. The reaction was "Die deutschen Komponisten eignen sich zum Ackerbau." I do not believe anything I can read. They were better. But if a French harpsichordist hears them playing, he regists a lot of stylistc mistakes. If we make an interpretation on stage, we should divide between French style, German style and Italian style. If you think, Bach was German style, no, it is not so clear. When he was young, he could hear French harpsichordists, playing French music in French style. He knew the power of the speaking melody. Later he wrote letters to French composers, this is all we know, but there was contacts. In spite all of this, dont change your style playing the harpsichord. You are one of the few which can be listened allways with interest.
@@martinh1277 You open up quite a few cans of worms, my friend, more than I would like to argue about in a TH-cam comment section. So permit me to comment on what I perceive to be some factual mistakes in your reply regarding the topic at hand before I bid you farewell and withdraw from this conversation, as it's taking up a bit too much time for my liking. - I never mentioned Buxtehude. His organs were most likely tuned meantone. I mentioned Kunze, who tuned some of his organs according to Werckmeister's instructions. Furthermore, there is an accurate description from 1677 of an Organ built and tuned by Förner in 1668. This organ is definitely not tuned meantone but some form of well tempered which I would very much like to see more often nowadays! - Yes, I mentioned Vallotti, as an example what you should *not* tune, as I don't just think it's a bad temperament, but it most likely saw no use outside of what Vallotti did himself. - Zang was not the first person to advocate for equal temperament. Werckmeister, Mattheson, Neidharth, Marpurg, amongst others, did so long before him. - There are English sources for temperaments. For example: Godfrey Keller's instructions in his book on figured bass, London 1707 (posth.). There are several more throughout the 18th century. True, I'm not aware of sources from earlier in the 17th century, though I must admit that I have not had the occasion to thoroughly research this topic. - Finally, you mention organists and organs a lot, also as a source of pushing the development of temperaments, when in fact meantone was used on organs well into the 18th century. This here however is a video on tuning harpsichords. Using information on and the practice surrounding organs, which generally served quite a different purpose than the harpsichord, and which did and still do require a lot more effort to tune, to argue a point about harpsichord tuning - a point which, if I'm being honest, remains somewhat unclear to me - does not strike me as particularly convincing. Your points on other subjects definitely merit further conversation, but as I said above, right now I do not wish to invest the time required to appropriately delve into these matters. So I hope you don't mind me leaving it at that :-) Cheers!
Vielen Dank , Andreas For years I've been dreaming to play on a harpsichord . It 's vert difficult to find one ( even Sperhhacke u Neupert to start with ( financial means direct all , unfortunately ). So , I dare Ask you if you Can help me buy one at 1500 euros , or with a buying/ renting opportunity . I live in France near Pau SW part , &Would love teaching my Little ones too . Scarlatti k108, 466, - Couperin les barricades misterieuses . And so many to discover
Oof, as much as I'd love to help, I'm afraid that at 1500€ you will have great difficulty finding an instrument. You can get Sperrhake or Neupert revival harpsichords at that price point, but those instruments will most likely only disappoint you, as they have very little in common with historical instruments. For a good second hand harpsichord you can expect to pay at least 8000€. Spinets and virginals usually start at bit lower, at around 6000€. This also depends on where you buy - prices in Germany for example are very high, whereas they are very low in Czech Republic. My tip would be to keep an eye out on wwkbank.harpsichord.be/ and eBay - have a look at what's on offer in BeNeLux, too! Best of luck, I really hope you find an instrument that'll make you happy!
@@AndreasGilger so quickly answered and so deep is your kindness & generosity . Thank you very much Andreas . In such hard times , music remains the helpful go-on - joyful reason to live it up to. I keep visiting the net referred to & learn & listen to harpsichords .The one I immediately loved ( not knowing anything about) is the Hemsch.what you teach us con erning everything about them is already like a precious gift hope & pleasure . thanks again .
Hello Andreas News from France I' be bought a .... Lindholm double manual ; but: 1) - the bridge ,(upper one on the harmonic table has to be re-glued and re - pinned .(how many pins1 ,2 .?what glue ?how long glued?.with weights on the bridge? Do the pins go through the table? . Re harmonising to be done 2)-probLem of the lindholm plectra that are cut together with the ( languette / in french) All plectra of the buff stop have to be done again.(a professional sells a complete copy of a jack , at 10 euro one .but the jacks are ok.so many questions .Is ther a way to have find a plan of the lindholm in Germany ?.so that I could determine what I could try to do by myself , & what not . I hope not to bother you too much with this post . Yet I find it so thrilling to discover & find about it all. Thanks for reading me Your new '' baby '' is enthralling. Your must be excited with new music to come & learn
@@detchen40 That sounds like a handful of work...! I don't think there are any plans of Lindholm harpsichords around, and they stopped manufacturing long ago. Anyway, if you bring it to a professional harpsichord builder, they'll know what to do. With these sorts of instruments anything goes, really, in my opinion there's no need to stick to what the original builder intended. They weren't built according to historic lines, and quite a few of their "innovations" or "improvements" proved more detrimental than advantageous. To make your Lindholm sound as good as it can, you'd probably need a new set of plectra, possibly new strings, too, and perhaps some alterations to the soundboard. All that would however end up costing quite a bit, and to be perfeclty honest I'm not sure whether the result will be worth the money and effort...
oh my goodness thx so much and your instrument is SO BEAUTIFUL WOW
Your videos are a great help to me. I am a lifetime pianist that has just purchased my first harpsichord, tuning became an issue almost immediately. Your advice for 3rds, 4ths and 5ths are of much help, but I couldn’t help but notice that when you play your C note on the instrument here in this video, it’s actually playing a concert Bb, just wanted to understand your reasoning, and if I should consider the same at home. I’m playing on a small scale 70’s era 54-key Neupert Tellemman.
Hi there, I'm glad to hear the videos are proving helpful! Well spotted: this harpsichord is not tuned to a=440, but a=400. It's a pitch that was used in France in the late 17th and throughout much of the 18th century (with some exceptions, like e.g. the opera). So, it's still very much a C, albeit on a different pitch :-) Your 1970's Neupert is likely to be tuned at 440 Hz or thereabouts, so you tune to that pitch, of course. EarlyMusicSources.com have a great video on the subject, if you want to learn more!
Me watching historical experts tuning using Valloti.
This video telling me to never tune to Valloti. 😳
Tolles Video, vielen Dank! Welche Stimmung nimmst du für Händel, welche für französische Barockliteratur? 🙂
Vielen Dank :) für die französische Literatur nehme ich Mitteltönig, wenn's früheres Repertoire ist, und für das spätere stimme ich Tempérament Ordinaire. Händel ist etwas schwieriger, oft Werckmeister 3, Kirnberger 3 oder, je nach Programm, ein modifiziertes Tempérament Ordinaire, eine Hausmischung, sozusagen ;-)
@@AndreasGilger Vielen Dank! Spannend 😊
Thank you for your videos! I enjoy watching them and learn a lot. I’m new to this, and I’ve been using equal temperament to tune my harpsichord, and I want to experiment with one of the temperaments you suggested. Once you set the temperament, all the octaves will be pure, correct? Regardless of the temperament? Also, can you suggest the best and most usable tuning if you play with other musicians? They tend to like equal temperament, but is there a historical temperament that is usable and reasonably easy to tune for someone who’s still learning all this? I’m not great Tuning by ear yet. What’s a good temperament after equal temperament that works well with chamber music, continuo playing? I’ve gotten so many different answers!
Hi there, thanks for the comment! I'm happy to hear you like my videos :)
Oof, those are a some very good questions, sorry in advance that the replies end up being so long!
- Exactly, the octaves and unisons are perfectly pure. Some people like deliberately setting them out of tune, ever so slightly, as they feel this gives the tuning a certain body. Personally, I don't agree, and I prefer my unisons and octaves to be perfectly pure. I have also not come across anything similar in historic sources. Finally, it should be added that in a concert the harpsichord will go out tune by itself, so this seems like wasted effort to me ;-)
- Many people will tell you to tune Vallotti. I strongly recommend against that! Not only is Vallotti very anachronistic (very late 18th century, and except for Tartini - who seems to have been a personal friend of Vallotti's - nobody ever mentions him or his temperaments), it also sounds atrocious. Equal temperament at least had its proponents throughout the centuries, so it is somehwat historically appropriate. When it comes to temperaments, I always try to tune what's appropriate to the music, historically speaking. As "all-purpose-tools" I usually go for Kirnberger III, Werckmeister III, or Temperament Ordinaire. They are really easy to tune by ear (four 1/4-comma meantone fifths which make up a pure third, and the rest of the fifths are either pure or quasi pure), and sound really great. Things like Vallotti or Equal temperament or Neidhardt have lots of slightly out-of-tune fifths, sometimes in odd places, making them difficult to impossible to accurately tune by ear. Finally, it has to be added that, excepting fretted instruments like lutes and gambas, as well as wind instruments to a certain degree, there's not really any temperament that's "more" or "less" comfortable to play with. There are temperaments your colleagues will be used to, and thus they feel more comfortable to them. But many of colleagues have confirmed that, once you get used to them, meantone or Werckmeister or Kirnberger etc. are just as comfortable - or uncomfortable - to tune to as any others. It's just a matter of practise, of course.
Hope this helps! Feel free to keep the questions coming :)
@@AndreasGilger Thank you for the great, detailed information! I am using a T-tuner because of you! I will continue to work on my tuning--seems like it's not 'setting' well . . . upper range just goes sharp, lower range falls a bit almost immediately. I don't think it's the harpsichord; more my tuning skills, or lack thereof. Thanks again! You are very kind!
@@michaelmastronicola3158 Sometimes it can be the instrument's fault, or the climate's fault. A harpsichord that's tuned rarely will go out of tune quickly, and a tuning will move with both temperature and humidity. The extreme ranges of your instrument will reflect those changes most noticeably. So: don't fret - and keep turning those pins :-)
Hello, I just bought a used harpsichord and this is the first time I am tuning a harpsichord, unfortunately I was given a L shaped tuning hammer so I was wondering if there is any way I can use the L shaped tuning hammer without dameging the harpsichord?
Thank you.
Hi, you'll need to be super careful not to apply any downward pressure with the L-shaped hammer. I recommend investing in a T-shaped one, that way you'll be a lot more relaxed when tuning :-)
Apologies, I'm struggling to understand some of your words in the reverb of the room.
3:33 night art temperament? and later monocort (or monocourt)?
Johann Georg Neidhardt was a musician and theoretician of the 18th century who developed a number of temperaments. In order to accurately set the temperaments he made use of a monochord, not unlike how we would use a tuning device nowadays
@@AndreasGilger Thank you so much for the quick reply. I actually thought there was a temperament called "night art"-I was picturing some darkly tuned piano. Now it makes much more sense!
At those times, there were the organist to develop new tunings. Usually they were not tuned on the organs. The organists knew that. They developed just to show that they are interested end engaged to make the organ sound better. It was a matter of renommé. The church liked to see such engaged folks. Vallotti belongs to them. He describes, how about a harpsichord was tuned 100 years before and was therefore out of any public interest in 1776. Here is the point of his anachronism. Same goes for Werckmeister, Neidhardt, Kirnberger. No source for having been tuned.
The harpsichordists had one good sounding tuning and another for all keys and this was all they needed. They were responsible for their tuning to work fine in the next concerto. So they selected the one or the other. We should not expect sources here.
The lutenists prefered tempered placement of the frets. This was done by sight, not by ear because it is easy to make. And that was it. So did the bass Gambists.
For the reference tone they could have used a tongue whistle, which gives a stabile tone. If you blow stronger, it gets louder, not higher. But they did not.
Tempered seems to be the same word for two different tunings. They said, tempered tuned by monochord sounds not fine, but tempered by ear sounds better.
So, what do we really know about baroque tuning?
It is true: compared to the massively varied practice of tuning the amount of information available today is very slim. The temperaments on organs were usually changed to adapt to modern demands, harpsichords go out of tune, and few people bothered to write down their methods of tuning. But that should not be an argument for dismissing what information we have. Often, historical authors would not write prescriptively, but descriptively. Take for example the "tempérament ordinaire" in France: authors writing about it would describe current practice of tuning, and one author (Sauveur) even calculated the pitch of his harpsichord - twice, and accurately! We have pitch pipes, tuning forks, wind instruments which allow insight into pitch of certain times and places, and we have descriptions of how people tuned their instruments as well as surviving instruments with their original temperament intact. We have people complaining about how some instruments were difficult to play at the same time because of their different temperaments (for example: fretted instruments like lutes on one hand, and keyboard instruments on the other hand). What's more: there actually is evidence of the organ builder Kunze (or Contius) having tuned his organs in accordance with Werckmeister. So, even though massive amounts of information are lost, even though all the "in house temperaments" of individual harpsichordists and organ builders are lost, what does survive should absolutely be taken seriously. How else are we to ever approach the sounds of centuries past? It's all we have!
@@AndreasGilger And we have Zang, 1800. Let us tune the organ tempered and take, what comes. It will be not the best, but the last 150 years of looking for a better organ tuning were wasted.
Zang is by no means the first author to advocate equal temperament. At any rate, I vehemently disagree with the claim that equal temperament is "the best" temperament. There's nothing quite like a pure major third ;-) And even if equal temperament were "the best", experimenting with and learning about other temperaments is hardly "time wasted"!
@@AndreasGilger You make a common mistake. You do not see the difference between me and you.
Zang was the first to advocate equal temperament. Many years before and before Werckmeister a French organ was tunes tempered. It sounded uggly. They changed it after a short time and never turned back. Zang knew about this.
It should alarm you, that Zang advocated the tempered tuning 150 jears later, knowing, it was no good tuning. He was frustrated.
Best organ tuning is Klaiss. This firm earns a lot of money with making their organs sound better than the rest. But ist is not perfect. The problem is unsolved. his is nowadays, not baroque.
You mentioned Vallotti. You can not even say, was it meant as organ tuning or harpsichord tuning. Surely, it is of none importance, Vallotti was not tuned.There were two reasons. 1.: They knew, it was a new organ tuning. Therefore they did not tune organs with it. 2.: They saw it as a harpsichord tuning. They could already tune their harpsichords for all keys. They did not need that.
Now lets us have a look to England. There is the Fitzwilliam book. They had a tuning for all keys. But this tuning was not written in a book. There is no English tuning book. Every student learned it from his master, also tuning, so every harpsichordist knew, what to do.
The logic is the same in France and Germany. They all knew what to do for playing in many keys and needed no book for it. So, here an explanation is necessary for the books with the tuning tables.
Same thing with the feathers, same thing with the only sufficient cheese on Italian noodles.
Amsterdam was very Protestant. Amsterdam was at the coast. They had many feathers of seagull. So they wrote, seagull sound best.
France was Catholic and France was Paris. In France they wrote, Raven makes the only good sound. Which means, the protestant sound is not so fine.
They invented more and more well tempered tunings to show their intellectual abillity and to be prout of themselves. They did not need them. They did not use them.
If you think, Buxtehudes organ was tuned in Werckmeister III, read the souces carefully. Buxtehude met Weckmeister and they decided to tune the organ in Werckmeister III. The organ was tuned then by a local organ builder, who tuned the organ as the parish wanted to pay for.
Now to the most important thing, the style of interpretation. The Germans were trained organists with the ability to play the harpsichord. The French had trained harpsichord players. The Germans first had to take care of the pedal. It is like walking, one step after the other step. There above is the melody. So they played the harpsichord.
The French harpsichordists wanted a melody, that speaks. Really, this is better for the audience. And the audience pays the chose. Besides, this is your personal position and I think, you do it fine and I enjoy it very much. But this is me and you and not Baroque.
Now German organists came to Paris and wanted to make a carreer as harpsichordist to make good money. They played their compositions in their style. The reaction was "Die deutschen Komponisten eignen sich zum Ackerbau."
I do not believe anything I can read. They were better. But if a French harpsichordist hears them playing, he regists a lot of stylistc mistakes. If we make an interpretation on stage, we should divide between French style, German style and Italian style.
If you think, Bach was German style, no, it is not so clear. When he was young, he could hear French harpsichordists, playing French music in French style. He knew the power of the speaking melody. Later he wrote letters to French composers, this is all we know, but there was contacts.
In spite all of this, dont change your style playing the harpsichord. You are one of the few which can be listened allways with interest.
@@martinh1277 You open up quite a few cans of worms, my friend, more than I would like to argue about in a TH-cam comment section. So permit me to comment on what I perceive to be some factual mistakes in your reply regarding the topic at hand before I bid you farewell and withdraw from this conversation, as it's taking up a bit too much time for my liking.
- I never mentioned Buxtehude. His organs were most likely tuned meantone. I mentioned Kunze, who tuned some of his organs according to Werckmeister's instructions. Furthermore, there is an accurate description from 1677 of an Organ built and tuned by Förner in 1668. This organ is definitely not tuned meantone but some form of well tempered which I would very much like to see more often nowadays!
- Yes, I mentioned Vallotti, as an example what you should *not* tune, as I don't just think it's a bad temperament, but it most likely saw no use outside of what Vallotti did himself.
- Zang was not the first person to advocate for equal temperament. Werckmeister, Mattheson, Neidharth, Marpurg, amongst others, did so long before him.
- There are English sources for temperaments. For example: Godfrey Keller's instructions in his book on figured bass, London 1707 (posth.). There are several more throughout the 18th century. True, I'm not aware of sources from earlier in the 17th century, though I must admit that I have not had the occasion to thoroughly research this topic.
- Finally, you mention organists and organs a lot, also as a source of pushing the development of temperaments, when in fact meantone was used on organs well into the 18th century. This here however is a video on tuning harpsichords. Using information on and the practice surrounding organs, which generally served quite a different purpose than the harpsichord, and which did and still do require a lot more effort to tune, to argue a point about harpsichord tuning - a point which, if I'm being honest, remains somewhat unclear to me - does not strike me as particularly convincing.
Your points on other subjects definitely merit further conversation, but as I said above, right now I do not wish to invest the time required to appropriately delve into these matters. So I hope you don't mind me leaving it at that :-) Cheers!
Vielen Dank , Andreas
For years I've been dreaming to play on a harpsichord .
It 's vert difficult to find one ( even Sperhhacke u Neupert to start with ( financial means direct all , unfortunately ).
So , I dare Ask you if you Can help me buy one at 1500 euros , or with a buying/ renting opportunity .
I live in France near Pau SW part , &Would love teaching my
Little ones too .
Scarlatti k108, 466, -
Couperin les barricades misterieuses .
And so many to discover
Oof, as much as I'd love to help, I'm afraid that at 1500€ you will have great difficulty finding an instrument. You can get Sperrhake or Neupert revival harpsichords at that price point, but those instruments will most likely only disappoint you, as they have very little in common with historical instruments. For a good second hand harpsichord you can expect to pay at least 8000€. Spinets and virginals usually start at bit lower, at around 6000€. This also depends on where you buy - prices in Germany for example are very high, whereas they are very low in Czech Republic. My tip would be to keep an eye out on wwkbank.harpsichord.be/ and eBay - have a look at what's on offer in BeNeLux, too! Best of luck, I really hope you find an instrument that'll make you happy!
@@AndreasGilger so quickly answered and so deep is your kindness & generosity . Thank you very much Andreas .
In such hard times , music remains the helpful go-on - joyful reason to live it up to.
I keep visiting the net referred to & learn & listen to harpsichords .The one I immediately loved ( not knowing anything about) is the Hemsch.what you teach us con erning everything about them is already like a precious gift hope & pleasure . thanks again .
Hello Andreas
News from France
I' be bought a .... Lindholm double manual ; but:
1) - the bridge ,(upper one on the harmonic table has to be re-glued and re - pinned .(how many pins1 ,2 .?what glue ?how long glued?.with weights on the bridge? Do the pins go through the table? .
Re harmonising to be done
2)-probLem of the lindholm plectra that are cut together with the ( languette / in french)
All plectra of the buff stop have to be done again.(a professional sells a complete copy of a jack , at 10 euro one .but the jacks are ok.so many questions .Is ther a way to have find a plan of the lindholm in Germany ?.so that I could determine what I could try to do by myself , & what not .
I hope not to bother you too much with this post .
Yet I find it so thrilling to discover & find about it all.
Thanks for reading me
Your new '' baby '' is enthralling. Your must be excited with new music to come & learn
@@detchen40 That sounds like a handful of work...! I don't think there are any plans of Lindholm harpsichords around, and they stopped manufacturing long ago. Anyway, if you bring it to a professional harpsichord builder, they'll know what to do. With these sorts of instruments anything goes, really, in my opinion there's no need to stick to what the original builder intended. They weren't built according to historic lines, and quite a few of their "innovations" or "improvements" proved more detrimental than advantageous. To make your Lindholm sound as good as it can, you'd probably need a new set of plectra, possibly new strings, too, and perhaps some alterations to the soundboard. All that would however end up costing quite a bit, and to be perfeclty honest I'm not sure whether the result will be worth the money and effort...